A Way Forward
by nightgigjo
Summary: What was on the other side of the Veil, no one could have expected - but one wizard was to discover. / *Prelude/side story to "Fate, Change, Debt".
1. Beyond the Veil

**Timeline: OOTP, just after the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. This story is chiefly HP, but makes connections to Avengers/MCU later on. Intended as an introductory piece to a more even crossover.**

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Bella's shriek rang through the dank air, as the unspoken countercurse he'd prayed would save him died on his lips. Bella's curse - not the Killing Curse, surprisingly - knocked Sirius Black off his feet. A gasp from Harry, and Sirius felt cold wisps tickle his skin - the curtain? - as he flailed wildly, grasping at anything that would break his fall. The fall that took him through the crumbling archway, hearing Harry's anguished screams as he landed, flat on his back on hard stone.

Sirius lay on the ground, bewildered that he hadn't lost consciousness. The room he'd fallen into was completely silent. There was no noise at all, not even the merest susurrus of the curtain.

Gingerly, he pulled himself to a sitting position, and stared. There was no curtain. The faint whisper was in the air around him, but there was no material to make the rippling sound. There was nothing. No arch, no doorway. Nothing but bare, impenetrable stone.

But, Sirius thought, if I fell through... Then he gave a shuddering sigh. The Veil. The mystery of Death, Dumbledore had said, was in that room.

And Bella had known. As fascinated as she'd always been with dead and dying things, it was hardly surprising she'd be drawn to it. The glee he'd heard in her cracking voice was explained. She'd stood him up before the gates of Hell, and pushed.

Odd, he didn't feel dead. A ghost, then? The ghosts at Hogwarts were conscious, right? If he was a ghost, he could at least haunt Bellatrix for the rest of her miserable life.

Then, a mad idea occurred. Ghosts could pass through solid objects.

Even stone.

Sirius looked at the wall in front of him, marble-glassy, shimmering with an oily sheen, myriad hues wavering, shifting, disappearing from sight.

He stood up, and adopted the pose he'd so often used on Platform 9-3/4: relaxed, not a care in the world, not paying the least attention. Gently, he leaned into the wall.

Nothing.

He thought again. Ghosts remained behind because something held them. Who'd ever heard of a nonchalant ghost? He laughed at his own foolishness, and changed position. Holding himself straight, he marched purposefully into the wall.

It didn't budge. He put his hand to his nose (sore), and pulled his hand away (bloody).

It was almost black, the blood. Sirius placed the streaked hand against the wall, leaving half a handprint on the smooth surface.

Well. Maybe he wasn't dead, at that. The Bloody Baron's blood had always looked silver, and hadn't come off on any physical object he'd passed through.

There was too much he didn't know about this. He still might be dead after all. But a bloody nose was hope enough to go on with.

Sirius had never, until Azkaban, been a patient man. The excitement of rejoining the Order, of seeing his godson again, had made him careless. Reckless.

Not this time.

He looked about the chamber, noting a single passage going out, with the beginning of a stair. He shook himself off, and took it.

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**Author's Note: Thank you for reading! This is my first fic, and while it has been beta-read outside of FFNet, there may yet be some error-correcting or tweaks. Reviews much appreciated!**


	2. A Veil of Mist

The stair spiraled up into the rock, with no side passages that he could see. The way was worn, but solid, smooth but not treacherous. The air wasn't stale, though (that is, if he was really breathing), but slightly chill, and it swirled about him in eddying gusts which intensified as he climbed. The stair, too, became increasingly steep, treads morphing into hand- and foot-holds, the final length of the passage straightening like a ladder. On the last proper stair, Sirius saw, to his relief, an opening in the tunnel above him.

Grappling over the lip of the tunnel, Sirius levered himself out onto solid ground. He peered into the tunnel, but no trace remained of ladder or stair. When he blinked in disbelief, the tunnel disappeared entirely.

Well, he thought, it's not as though there were any use going back.

Shaking his head, Sirius looked up, and scrambled to his feet. He was standing on a vast plain, though how he knew that was a mystery. The place was shrouded in mist, thick swaths of it, interweaving to fill the space between him and his destination (another certainty that arose, unbidden). The light was pallid, diffuse, with no sign of sun or moon. The place itself was...odd. The ground he stood on looked like flat, grey stone, but out of the corner of his eye he caught glimpses of other forms - grassy plains, shifting black sands, even the open sea - and if he closed his eyes, it felt spongy, like a meadow in springtime.

The other thing he felt was the scrutiny of countless minds, watching him. His eyes snapped open, and the feeling dissipated, but the echo of it remained, tiny pinpricks of cold on every nerve.

The only thing to do was start walking.

As he loped towards his destination (a fortress, he felt certain, or a castle) he saw no one at all. He occasionally heard them, though, when the mists swirled briefly, outlining the shapes of those passing. Even as he walked, they flowed by – the clank of armor and whinny of horses, the diapason of voices in solemn song. He saw nothing of them, though, save how the landscape changed out of the corner of his eye.

Sirius found that if he walked, only looking ahead, but focusing on nothing, he could see more, even straight on. The hints of other landscapes ghosted over each other, eventually settling in overlapping layers. If he tried to look any particular one, they all disappeared into the mist. But if he didn't try, and let his gaze fall in the middle distance, they were revealed to him. He heard - and saw - the swishing robes of the singers, the faint flickering of candles as distant as starlight. Their hymn was no tune he'd ever heard, sung in a language he'd never heard spoken. One of their number seemed to notice him, then, obliquely – and the sight of it sent Sirius reeling back into the mist.

The shape of the body had been human. The face was reptilian, pale blue, and glittering with frost.

What in the name of Merlin was this place?

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**Author's Note: Decided I should go ahead and post the second installment already tonight. I've divided up this story into seven chapters, about this size. Narratively speaking, they divided up best this way. I was going to have four chapters but then one felt skimpy. All skimpy but more chapters? We'll see if that works at all.**

**Any commentary on characterization is *greatly* welcome. This fic will feature some characters from folklore as well as the two fandoms listed. So far it's just Sirius, but please, do trust me, more characters are coming.**


	3. Before the Dais

After that, Sirius kept his eyes rather more on his feet than anything else, concentrating on finding the center of all this, and, more importantly, someone who could tell him what was going on. Surely, he thought, I should at least be at some sort of gate by now.

With his next step, a shape rose out of the mist, a massive door of hammered bronze, unadorned and inscrutable. Whatever walls to which it might have been attached were shrouded in the deepening fog. There was neither knocker nor guard, but when Sirius raised his hand to touch the gently gleaming surface, it swung open of its own accord.

Inside the door was a dimly lit hall, more like the Department of Mysteries than Sirius cared to admit. The same raised dais was there, and the crumbling stone arch, but the curtains hanging in its empty space were deep crimson, whole, and perfectly still.

In front of the arch was a low throne in the same bronze-work as the door. On the throne was a woman, regal, dark-haired and deathly pale. All other aspects of her changed: she seemed by turns ancient and frail, others in vigorous youth; gentle, harsh, commanding, indifferent. She watched Sirius with an air of serene repose, tinged only with the expectation that he would speak and make himself known.

Sirius's voice lodged briefly in his throat, not quite knowing how to address this...being. His nervous bewilderment saved him the trouble, as he blurted out the single thought that had led him here.

"Where am I? What is this place?"

The lady's expression flickered skeptical, amused, severe, aloof. Her eyes, crystalline grey and piercing, studied him closely. "You ask questions to which you know the answers," she said, in a deep tenor that shivered with the harmonics of thousands of other voices. "You are beyond the Veil, are you not?"

Sirius hesitated, uncertain. "I don't understand," he said. "Everything I was raised on was how to live, and die, to honor the Black family name. When I realized what ugliness that name stood for, " Sirius paused for breath. "But here, what I've seen, it's as if…this isn't just one place," he fumbled. "It's more like there are lots of them, all crowded on top of one another, like it can't make up its mind. So I can't be sure of where I am."

The woman nodded sagely, sadly. "What you believe, you will see," she said. "This place has many names. In your tongue it would be called the Land of Mist," she explained. "Its true name is Helheimr."

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**Author's Note: First of all, hello to new followers! Thank you for the encouragement, it will certainly help keep the fic flowing.**

**Please review, if you're so inclined. All comments are appreciated. **


	4. Revelation

The bark of laughter came before Sirius could keep it in check. "So," he said, with a wry chuckle, "I'm in Hell." He shook his shaggy head bemusedly. "Of course. Not even dead and I've gone to hell."

The woman curled her lip in chagrin, a smile. "No, I am Hel, and this is my home," she replied, curious, imperious. "Here also I rule and keep the dead. But you, mortal, are none of mine. However, it is true: once you pass the Veil, there is no return."

Sirius's heart sank, but the way she had said 'return' lodged itself in his mind. "No going back," he said, "but perhaps there is a way… forward?"

Surprise, humor, approval. "Your perception serves you," she said. "In your world, you will be dead. If you remain in my realm or any of the Nine, you will die. But a path may be found which leads away from the Nine Worlds, and outside of my domain."

Nine worlds? Sirius thought. So that might explain...

"The being you saw? Yes, she was a Jotunn, or the spirit of one. Their form is somewhat different from yours, but you are not wholly unlike."

More mysteries about this place, then, but none Sirius cared to explore, not if he had a chance at life. He felt the renewed stirrings of delirious hope. "This path, then. What must I do to find it?"

"What do you expect you will have to do, mortal?" Was she challenging him, or laughing?

Sirius suppressed the urge to run his fingers through his hair. "I haven't the faintest idea," he said, looking down nervously at his hands. "You said, what was it? 'You'll see what you believe'? I've had only one thing to believe in during the last few months, and you say I can't go back to it." Sirius licked his drying lips, and went on. "I expected that to fill me with despair, but it doesn't. You see, I'd given up hope for so long, I'd forgotten what it felt like. Hopelessness is, really, quite easy for me." He was quiet for some time. Honesty was easy too, but candor wasn't. "I lost hope. Then I got it back again, and now I have to get it back again a second time. I know I have to do it; that's what Harry would want," he said, looking up at the woman. He dropped his gaze again, this time pausing for breath and courage. "Thing is, I wouldn't know how to do it, to regain hope. The last time, it was given - granted." It was as unlikely as anything he'd ever dared, but he could think of no other way. He looked up at her again. "Would you," he gulped, throat suddenly parched with terror at what he stood to lose - again. "Would you grant me this chance?"

Her face, for a brief moment, was perfectly still, a picture of solemn understanding. After a moment, she spoke. "You have but to answer one question: what is your desire?"

It was Sirius's turn at solemnity. "I want," he began, measuring the thread by which his life hung, "to be useful." Sirius paused, but dared not look again at that ever-shifting face. He gathered himself and plunged ahead, heedless. The truth was all that would serve here. "I spent twelve years in Azkaban, confined, useless. I had just begun to be something to someone, to do good, do anything! I survived, I went mad but I survived, and I lost," he trailed off, searching for his words, his friends. His voice suddenly strained as he choked back a sob. He had not grieved that lost life, the man - boy, really - he had been before Azkaban, not with being on the run, and Harry, and the Order, and the war. He hadn't had the time. He blinked, fists clenched, eyes glistening. "I lost too much. Too many. If I can't go back to Harry, I can go on. Help somewhere. Someone." He glanced at Hel with the merest flicker of his eyes, to make certain she hadn't disappeared, or, or what else he daren't think.

The figure on the dais closed her eyes for the first time since their meeting, and remained motionless for some time. She remained alert, but to what - vision, force or presence - there was no sign.

After an unbearable age, she again opened her eyes, turning on him with eyes, solid and grey as steel. "Very well," she said, rising from her place. "Mark the words of Urða: 'The way hides not from the true self, leads not but to the heart's desire. The master will stray, the servant shall follow. The guard will turn away, and the shadows will not know him.'"

The echoes of the prophecy left a stunned silence in their wake. Sirius blinked in surprise, only to open his eyes again on the mist-shrouded plain.

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**Author's Note: Woohoo, followers! and favoriter(s)! You all are the best. **

**As you can see, i can write more than 500 words at a time. And post them, too! I'm prepping the next section for ul-ing tomorrow.**

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	5. Redirection

Sirius had no idea how long he remained in that place of swirling fog and indefinite light. At some point he sat, without bothering to check whether there was anything to sit upon. He needed time to think, to let all this strangeness sort itself out. And so he sat, and the hosts of Hell could have passed by him without his notice, and they very likely did.

This was all so...mythological.

That's exactly it, he thought. It's precisely like being in a story that you were expected to make up as you went. Or, perhaps, that you were supposed to know how it went, in order to be a part of it. Sirius, however, had little to no idea of what was supposed to happen after you died.

And then he'd got some confirmation of his suspicions, that he _wasn't_ dead, after all. But how much could he really trust that? The key to this place seemed to be, of all things, what he _expected_. He hadn't expected to die when he fell through the Veil, and then miraculously found someone to tell him he wasn't dead, for certain?

But no, he thought, he'd had his doubts. And his assumptions. And the bloodied nose, and the terror at seeing the strange face of that dead person. But the figure of Hel, that bizarre woman on the dais, who looked to be in some sort of never-ending Transfiguration - she was more than real. He'd had no idea of someone reigning the world of the dead (one of the Nine she'd mentioned, he felt certain). And he could almost feel the power emanating from her. She was so completely unlike anything that had ever crossed his mind - especially relating to death - that this entire episode could not be solely in his head.

Whether it is or not, his thoughts reminded him, you don't have much choice but to go on. It's either that, or stay and die. And you know you're not done with life yet.

Sirius sat, chin cupped in one hand, running the tips of his fingers through his scraggly beard. I can't go back to Harry, he thought. Poor lad. I can only hope his friends are enough to get him through.

His mind wandered back to that prophecy, or pronouncement, or whatever it was she'd said. Something about finding the way with his true self, whatever that meant. But if there was anything that could be said to work in this place, it was the truth - so he supposed that he'd find the way if he truly wanted to find it?

Sirius planted his hands on the knees of his worn trousers, and looked around him. He started to stare into the middle distance, but shied away from it, remembering the host of the singing dead. Besides, he thought, that vision of death and decay, wasn't what he desired at all. Somehow he had to find his own way.

Ignoring the passing dead, Sirius began to focus inward, and felt again the desire to be useful, helpful, active and, yes, adventurous, in life. He would not sit and hide in a hole, not even if it were an entire world of his own making. Comfortable retirement to the known held no appeal. Instead, he craved the mystery of the unknown, the excitement inherent in just being alive, in breathing in fresh air, laughing, talking, and yes, in fighting, defending those he cared about.

He stood then with those exultations, and started off in the direction he'd been facing, towards his destiny, whistling as he went.

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**Author's Note: Followers, Favoriters AND Reviewers?! You folks are spoiling me. ^_^**

**This chapter-ette may get an edit or two before this is all over. It's the most philosophical so far, and may be the recipient of some further development. (Reviewers? Thoughts? Opinions?)**

**This will be the last update of this story for a short while, HOWEVER: I will be posting the beginnings of another tale, which will dovetail with the end of this story. Confused yet? I have the ending of this fic written, but it contains spoilers for another (much longer) fic.**

**Since the second fic is larger in scope, the chapters will be larger, too. I'm hoping this weekend will see the next fic begun, and this one posted in full.**


	6. Decision

Keeping his mind on his goal was a task which Sirius hadn't found difficult since his earliest childhood.

Even if the Black family single-mindedness weren't an inherited trait, he learned it from the most stubborn (and, to his mind, most stubbornly backward) inhabitants of the wizarding world. Holding to his own thoughts and morals in the face of certain opposition took both an insurmountable will and incredible mental flexibility. Unsurprisingly, he developed a talent for hiding his thoughts very early on, which at least kept him from being disowned until he was 16, and capable of taking care of himself.

Sirius sighed, and focused again on his goal. As much as he yearned to go back, to see his godson grow up - to protect him so he _could_ grow up - Sirius knew (again, against all reason - what was it with this place?) that there was no way from here to there. Where he would end up, he had no idea. On another planet, perhaps? Hel had spoken of Nine Realms - maybe there were more out there, with some place he could be useful. He just hoped it wasn't completely alien, as this place was.

As he became lost in his thoughts, Sirius's eyes stopped focusing on the landscape around him. It began to take a more definite shape as he traveled away from Hel on her dais. Great trees rose out of the mists, forming as he loped along. The trees bore needles, some of which then flattened and spread out into leaves, while others crowded each other, shrinking back into scaly patterns which followed the twigs. Yew, cedar, ash, pine - all these grew and mingled until the stone floor underfoot began to crunch with shed needles and fallen leaves. Throughout this transformation, Sirius remained fixed on his goal, giving no heed to the changes around him. The branches became bare, and snow fell, and still he paid it no mind. Snow melted, warmer rains came, new buds appeared, and still Sirius walked. As the seasons went through their rotations, he simply went on.

As the wood grew, the shadows deepened, until at last Sirius could walk no further without clearing brush. A thicket formed in front of him, lesser shrubs crowding around the great trees, like petitioners paying homage, with layers of ivied overgrowth for their cloaks. The shadows themselves coalesced among the thickest of the brambles. In the deepening gloom (was it finally becoming night in this timeless place?) Sirius began to make out an all-too-familiar shape in the gathering darkness.

_The shadows_, she had said. _And the way would be guarded._

The guards his mind knew best and feared the most began to take shape in front of him, tattered robes fluttering in an unseen wind. The form of a Dementor levitated about thirty meters in front of him, close enough for the vile creature to get a whiff of his all-too-focused human emotions, turning his former hope into despair.

But Sirius had spent a dozen years as prisoner to these creatures. Reflexively, he made a warding gesture as he began silently reciting the spell that would change his form, that he had taught himself in order to protect his closest friend. Padfoot, they had called him. Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. They'd been inseparable, once, those four friends - whether man or beast.

Dementors fed off _human_ emotions. That spell had allowed him to escape Azkaban; it would serve here, as well.

The man, lanky of frame, shaggy of hair, shrank and bent double, face elongating, ears rising to the top of his head, coming to points. Dark, glossy fur spread over his pallid skin, until Sirius was no longer a man, but a large black dog.

Padfoot put a glistening black nose to the ground, and snuffled about. This was more like it: earth, rotting leaves, mould, earthworms. The scent of life pleased him, and as he followed it, it increased. The great shadowy things floated overhead, but were of as little concern to the dog as passing clouds. There was a break in the undergrowth, just big enough for him to wriggle through, and whatever was in it smelled good. There was a powerful breeze, cold and dry, like winter on the moors.

The part of his mind that was still Sirius noted that what he saw was nothing like a moor, but that wasn't what dissuaded the dog. The ground on the other side of the gap fell away in a straight, steep slope, and Padfoot pawed at the edge, whining softly. Sirius got the feeling that was precisely where he ought to go, but his dog-self was definitively uncertain about skittering down the incline. The drop was also where the pathway stopped smelling like (wonderful, comforting) dirt, and became smooth, like glass, perhaps. The Sirius-mind still had to deal with the Padfoot-senses, and sometimes that sensory information didn't always translate perfectly. Sirius was going to have to gain full command, at least for a short while, to convince his Padfoot-self that a leap in the dark would be worth it. He gathered all his mental strength, to spur himself onward.

NOW, he thought.

At that very moment, Padfoot caught a whiff of magic and blood, fear and distress. Dog and man leapt, as one, to the rescue.


	7. Resolution

The dog's claws scrabbled and scraped on the surface of the tunnel - more a chute, really - as Sirius-Padfoot slid downwards through the starry blackness. The outline of another figure bumping along ahead of them was occasionally outlined against the dim glow. Its body flopped, as though it were injured or insensible. The shape of it said _Man_. The scent of it said _Wizard_. What else the dog-nose was telling him - something flint and frost - was thoroughly confusing to Sirius the man, but dogly interest and human compassion weren't too far apart, in this case.

The tunnel branched ahead of them, and the prone being jolted down and to the left. Sirius-Padfoot followed, sliding along in utter silence. He tried to catch up to the falling body, but it was impossible to go faster without losing control.

For an age, they fell and followed, in that timeless place.

Then, abruptly, it was over, and Padfoot-Sirius fell into something yielding and crackling. He opened his eyes on a canopy of trees, bare branches glistening in slanting sunlight. The dog sat up, shook himself, and sneezed. He discovered, to his canine delight, that he had landed in a drift of dried leaves. Before Sirius could stop himself, he rolled over and wriggled in the leaves, tongue lolling in pure joy.

_It might not be his world_, he thought, _but it feels like it. It feels like home._

As much as he wanted his human nose to breathe the free air as well, Sirius decided to keep his dog form a little longer, at least until he got an idea of what kind of place he was in. As far as Padfoot was concerned, it was dog heaven – but that didn't make it safe for a lone wizard.

Then Padfoot caught the scent again. It was a blast of wintry cold, mixed with the smell of magic. (How magic had a smell, Sirius would never know - but to his dog-self, it did.) The black dog followed his nose a dozen meters through a copse of spindly trees, finally stopping to sniff a bundle of black cloth in another pile of leaves. The cloth was wrapped around a body, which had a long mane of dark hair, and a thin face - pale, chilled, eyes closed. He reminded Sirius just the tiniest bit of Harry - lanky, wan, haunted. The dog sat back on his haunches, looking about for any observers. Sirius determined it was safe, and decided what he needed to be was human.

The bundle of cloth sighed a split second before he could begin the transformation. _Merlin blast it_, Sirius thought. _Guess I'll have to do this undercover._

Padfoot pawed at the stirring body, and gave the face an experimental lick. It tasted...alive, but cold. The eyes on the face opened to reveal light eyes, glassy and disoriented, but in an instant they focused, sharp and piercing. "What," the face said, voice quavering slightly, "what..."

The person ("man," Sirius decided) tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but was unable to keep himself upright. Padfoot slid under the near arm and sat down, letting the dark-haired figure slump over onto him for support. At first he held on, then shrugged the dog off, and tried to struggle to his feet. He made it halfway up again before he fell, landed on all fours, and heaved. _This man isn't going to die,_ Sirius thought, _but he's still in trouble._ The dog waited patiently for him to finish being sick, and when the man looked up at him, Padfoot gave a sharp bark, and thumped his tail. The man looked at him quizzically, then shook his head. He paled again at the motion, but kept control of himself this time, and managed to hoist himself onto his feet. Swaying slightly, he gave the dog a disdainful look, and staggered away.

Sirius gave this a moment's thought. There was no reason for him to waste time helping this young man, who obviously didn't want any. But he was as intrigued as Padfoot by the man's strange scent: powder snow and mountain heights and the electrical tang of magic.

_Besides,_ Sirius considered, _this man is the only indication I have that there is magic in this world at all_ _- and I followed him here._ All the worst horror stories of Muggles and their hostilities towards magic pushed themselves to the surface of his human mind, and the thought sobered him. Sirius wouldn't wish a witch-hunt on anyone - not even Bellatrix, most of the time.

Whoever this fellow was, he was magical, and he was _injured._ Neither Sirius nor Padfoot could let him just wander off. He had to help the wounded man, whether he wanted it or not.

Sirius-Padfoot gave a snuffling, dog-version of a sigh, and trotted briskly after the stumbling figure.

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**Author's Note: ** This concludes "A Way Forward." The story continues in "Fate, Change, Debt."


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